Not Written Yet
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: When Future Max refuses to give up on his mission, Liz finds herself facing a terrible dilemma. Meanwhile, Kyle and Tess won't let anything stand between them and trimming the lamp. First in the 'Kismet Unchained' series.
1. Chapter 1

"He can figure it out on his own, they all can," Tess Harding insisted, pacing the length of the room, next to the bed. She shook her head dismissively, a blonde ponytail bobbing about behind her. "They didn't even know where the **pod chamber** was until I came along." She looked Kyle in the eyes for a brief moment before turning away in frustration. "I hate this life!"

With that, Tess collapsed to sit on the corner of her bed, bent forward, palms resting heavily on her knees. She let out a deep sigh, and then a more normal breath. "I feel better."

Kyle was pushing his knuckles lightly against his cheek, near the corner of his mouth, in a nervous gesture he didn't even notice for staring at her. "You look really great when you're pissed," he blurted out. He linked the fingers of his hands together in front of him, moving a bit closer to her, close enough to put one of his legs between her knees.

She barely paid him any attention. "Yeah, right."

"No, I'm serious," Kyle insisted. "I feel all this energy coming from you. 'In order to trim the lamp of wisdom,'" he quoted, spreading his hands out flat against each other, "'we must attend to our bodily needs.'"

That got Tess' attention, and she looked up at Kyle out of the corner of her face, a quirky expression transforming itself into quiet amusement, and then reserved interest. With sudden resolve she took to her feet again, which left her standing very close to Kyle, her eyes focusing steadily on his face.

At that moment Liz Parker was stepping up to the door of the Valenti household, and about to ring their bell, when a pensive expression fell upon her features. She toyed with some important new thought for a few seconds, and then turned around, without announcing herself after all. Kyle and Tess, therefore didn't find out that she had been so close to interrupting the scene that was playing itself out in the bedroom.

"Let me tell you something, Buddha-boy," Tess breathed throatily, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "I got a lamp that needs some _serious_ trimming."

He looked back into her face for a few seconds, gathering up his nerve and hoping that Tess wasn't playing some obscure joke on him, as she seemed so often to be doing. But the avid look she was shooting back seemed sincere, and when Kyle bent forward, tilting his head slightly and putting his hands lightly on her forearms, she met him, passive but acquiescent, and their lips met.

Compared to her standoffish body language in the instant leading up to it, Tess' kiss was anything but indifferent. Something indefinable sparked between them, a turgid fervour born of the sudden discovery that each found the other intriguing and fascinating.

The clinch quickly deepened and grew passionate. Kyle's hands traced their way up her arms, across Tess' shoulders and upper back, meeting to stroke her skin lightly at the base of her neck, while Tess reached her own arms around Kyle's body and clasped them at the small of his back.

As the kissing got more and more serious, there were balance problems, and correcting each one seemed to make the next one more precarious. Eventually, Tess backed away, at an angle, and sat herself back down on the corner of the bed. This meant, as it happened, that Kyle was wrenched forward into an awkward crouch, his lips still up against hers, and her arms still circling around him.

He let go of the kiss at that point, mumbling something which definitely did not qualify as English, but succeeded in conveying the problem to his make-out partner. Whether the solution was also mentioned in Kyle's untranscribable palaver, or something that Tess hit on herself, was something that no-one will ever know, but it was solved quickly enough: Tess let go with her arms and turned herself at a slight angle on the edge of the bed, so that Kyle could sit down next to her and kiss her again. He did so, quite quickly.

The soft mattress underneath them was comfortable, and encouraged Tess to experiment with her French kissing technique. Kyle's hands were in motion again, his left hand stroking her back through her multicolored silk sweater, and the fingers of his right were softly running through her hair, between forehead and ear, sending a tingle through her. Wanting to return the favor, she ran her palm along his chest, and then daringly dived underneath the bottom edge of his grey t-shirt (which had come untucked at some point or another,) to tickle his flat, sleek stomach.

The breath was forced out of Tess all at once, and she realized that Kyle had lain back on the bed, stretching out his legs, and pulling her onto him with that one hand, which was still flat on her back. Her weight was mostly resting on him... her chest, or the left half of it at any rate, pressing down firmly against his, and each of them had one hip pretty much pressing against the other's crotch. The sudden intimacy of contact was tremendously exciting, and she could feel her heart rate pick up... heck, she could feel his heart rate pick up, they were so close, not to mention a few other bodily changes...

Tess' ponytail was falling down past her head to graze Kyle's chin, and she was aware of a strong and masculine scent filling her lungs. Kyle smiled nervously up at her, and began to rub the side of her torso, up and down, (well, towards her head and towards her feet, which wasn't really up and down at the moment, since she was mostly horizontal,) with all of his hand. Tess' breath caught as the repeated tug this way and that on her shirt began to further stimulate her...

Tess froze for a second, and then smiled, encouraging him on...

"Hey, where are you two?" The voice echoed down the hall, and Tess practically spun over Kyle and off the bed, losing her balance and grabbing the small dresser underneath the window with both hands. Kyle sat up in concern, offering a helpful hand, but his face was full of panic as he recognized his father's voice.

Tess shot him a look that was supportive, mutually guilty, and suppressing a laugh all at once, and they stayed very quiet, trying to calm their overactive hormones as much as possible before answering Jim Valenti. When he started saying hello again, Kyle replied "Yeah, dad, I'm in here. Tess was... was asking my opinion on doing a little redecorating."

Footsteps came up the hall, and Jim opened the door - Tess gave him a tiny wave hello, as she tried to make her cheeks pale by sheer force of will. Jim didn't seem to pay much attention to anything but the irregularly shaped blotch of pink color over the head of the bed though.

"Maybe something else, alright?" he said softly. "The grain of the wood on these walls is so naturally beautiful, why would you want to cover it up? Maybe you could try a stain."

"Umm... sure, alright," Tess managed to choke out.

"Nothing on for dinner?" Jim continued. "I think it was your turn, Kyle."

"Erh... I kinda got distracted," Kyle muttered.

"Well, we could order in some delivery," the Sheriff mused. "Mexican sound good?"

"Sure," Tess breathed, and her knees shook once Jim was out of sight. Kyle, who had recovered more of his composure, laid a finger silently across her lips, his eyes straying to notice how full and luscious they were, and smiled. The expression in his eyes promised that this was not over or finished, simply postponed for a more appropriate time and place.

She smiled shyly at the thought and followed him out of the bedroom, ducking in to wash up as Kyle headed out to the living room.

#

Liz Parker was troubled as she left the Valenti house.

She first hurried back through the long avenues towards downtown, but not quite back to her home above the Crashdown Cafe. She turned up the other side of Main Street, paying close attention to the dark windows of the congressional office, then unlocked the door, and let herself in.

Liz closed the door behind her and scanned the inside of the office. She searched through every part of every room until she found the flat black device. She tried to slip it into her pants pocket, but the thing was too large to fit, so she grabbed a nondescript black purse off a shelf, stuffed the gizmo inside, and left the office at a dash. She felt the blood pounding in her throat as she hurried down to Second Street, wondering when the next eastward bus would come.

It took about ten minutes to arrive, without much incident, and Liz rode all the way to Wrangler Street, the nearest stop to Max's house, and also the end of the line where the bus turned about to head back across town. Liz was nearly at Max's house when she did a double-take, found a hedge and managed to make a hole where she could put the purse without it being obvious unless you knew exactly where to look for it. Something seemed to be nagging at her about leaving it behind though, and she opened up the purse, looking through all that had been inside it before she made her own addition.

She was apparently in luck. There was typing paper and two black pens, and she sketched the designs from the top face of the black device onto a sheet of paper, then folded up the page and put in, and a pen, into her pocket. Then she re-stowed the purse and ran up to Max's door.

Max's father answered the door, called his son, and soon Liz was with Max in the Evans' back yard. "What's going on?" Max asked nervously.

"It... well, it's complicated," she muttered. "Do you remember that black pentagon device Brody Davis had at the UFO center?"

"Yeah."

"I just found one in Whittaker's office."

Max's eyes widened for a second. "Oh. So maybe those things are connected with our enemies... with the skins. One may have lost his or gotten killed, and that's how Brody got his hands on it."

Liz nodded. "I didn't fool around with it, but there seems to be a way to adjust it to any of five settings. That has to have been why it blasted Michael but not you... Davis fiddles with his every so often, and it was on a stun setting for Michael and a nonresponsive setting for you."

Max nodded, and she brought out her paper. "I sketched the designs onto here," she mentioned, showing him the rough five-segmented shape. "There's a blue bar on the side which is the most obvious way of indicating the active setting. Do you have any idea which setting it was on when you saw it?"

Max frowned. "I remember the symbols, but I definitely didn't notice the bar."

"Concentrate, Max. This is important."

He paused for a long few seconds. "If I had to guess what was safe, it could be this one," he said, tapping one of the five glyphs, then another, "or maybe that. I really couldn't tell for sure." Liz scowled, and then quickly wiped the expression off of her face. "Why is this so urgent, anyway? I realize that the thing could be a useful weapon - _if_ it affects the skins the same way it does us. But..."

"Oh, never mind," Liz mumbled, making a few tiny pen marks on the paper and folding it up again. "I'm sorry I bothered you with this."

"No, I'm glad you told me." Max said, his eyes starting to grow excited about something that had absolutely nothing to with pentagons. "Liz, I have tickets for a Gomez concert in Santa Fe, this Friday. I'd really like it if you could go with me."

Liz blinked in surprise, and a low whine escaped from the back of her throat an instant before she could clamp it off. "Max, I... I'll have to think about it."

"Alright. Tell me by tomorrow, if you can."

She smiled, and started to hurry off. "Hey, can I give you a lift back downtown?" Max asked. "I was thinking of eating at the Crash anyway."

"Of course you were," Liz muttered under her breath. She weighed the situation carefully for a few moments. "All right."

When Max dropped her off in the parking lot, she said thanks and quickly hurried down the street, then crossed and went back to Whittaker's office. This time, when she entered and looked around, _he_ was there.

"What the hell is going on?" he growled. "Tess was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. Max already went inside."

"Well, I don't think Tess is coming," Liz said flatly. "I didn't go and get her after all."

His face... Max Evans' face, more than a dozen years older, twisted into cold anger. "And why, exactly, not?"

"I'm having a lot of problems with this so-called 'plan' of yours!" Liz said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. "You say that Tess is the key, that if she'd been with you, you could have won. But by your own story, you haven't seen her since she left Roswell, which was at least thirteen years ago your time. How can you be sure?"

"She's the only chance that we've got left," Future Max growled. "And I have other sources of information... sources that I can't tell you about because it would disrupt the timeline. You cannot know too much, or the disruption might be even greater than the good of the mission I'm trying to complete here. I'm walking on a knife edge!"

"I'm sorry about that," Liz told him flatly. "But you're going to have to give me **something** more if you want to convince me to go ahead with this plan. There has to be some other way, some other ally that could give you at least as much power as Tess could. And even if it's all up to Tess, there has to be some other way to convince her to stay in Roswell... some other way to make her bond as a part of the group without tearing my life and Max's life apart, for the good of the world!"

Future Max was just staring at her. "He asked me to go see Gomez today," she sighed. "I want to go with him _so_ much, and I really don't see why it should be up to me to have to sacrifice that."

"I didn't think it was this early," Future Max said with a small smile. "I remember asking you to Gomez... you turned me down, and I was crushed, yet again. That night, I stayed in Roswell myself, not using any of the tickets. I came to your balcony, and..."

"Oh my god," Liz breathed. "What happened?" Future Max didn't answer. "That's what you meant about changing, and growing deeper, isn't it?" She stared up into his eyes. "You made love to me?"

"We made love together," Future Max corrected, with a slight smile. "And yes, that's when it started. It didn't take Tess long to notice that something had changed with us. She ran away before December."

Liz shook her head, frustrated with how he kept bringing the subject back to Tess. "Well, what if I just agree to go to Gomez, and leave the hot sex for later?"

"_Do you think that this is a joke, Liz_?" he roared, waving his hands expansively. Something tugged at one of Liz's legs, and it nearly slipped out from under her. She managed to make her way to a chair and sit down.

"You could have hurt me," she said loudly, letting the surprise and disappointment show in her voice. "How is it possible, that you, of **all** people, could hurt me?"

"I didn't mean to," Future Max insisted, hurrying over and bending down as if to look at her leg.

"I'm fine," she insisted, shooing him away. He sat up on the edge of a table and looked down into her face.

"Michael and Isabel were killed," Future Max said after a moment of silence "When I left, things looked bad for you, and Serena and the rest of the people I love. I swore to myself that I would _not_ let that happen."

"Hurting and threatening me isn't going to help you much," Liz muttered, "and killing me would be counter-productive. Maybe you should find someone else to pull of your plan - I just can't do it, Max! I promise that I won't try to interfere, if you just leave me alone."

"It's got to be you, no-one else," he insisted. "Maybe... if I tell you what I can, will you keep an open mind, think about what I need you to do? I'm not eager to give up the life that I remember, with you, but I really do think it's necessary."

Liz thought about it. "All right. What can you tell me about our life together? Did we get married?"

"We got married in Vegas," Future Max said, and chuckled to himself as Liz's mouth dropped open in disbelief.

#

After making sure that Future Max had left for the evening, Liz went to visit Michael and talk to him about the alien pentagon as well. He seemed very irritable and frustrated, and didn't have much that he could tell her, since he hadn't gotten close enough Brody's pentagram to get a good look at it before it zapped him.

When she got back to the Crashdown, the hour was late and not many people were around. Alex was sitting in a booth and he waved Liz over as soon as he saw her. As she got closer she noticed that he was nursing a root beer float, which wasn't a good sign

"Hey, Parker," Alex smiled tightly. "Have you heard the latest?"

Liz shrugged to him. "I'm not sure. What category?"

"About Michael, and Maria, and Courtney?"

Liz thought for a moment. "I don't think so, assuming the latest is less than a week old."

"Oh well then..." Alex sighed, and Liz realized that he was really upset. "Let's see. Courtney hanging around the kitchen, kinda flirting with Michael, right? And completely in front of Maria."

"That's old news,"

"I'm just setting the stage. Michael says that he's suspicious about Courtney, the way she just showed up in town this summer, and the fact that Whittaker had pictures of her. He thought there was something more about the way she was particularly interested in him, like maybe she had a notion that he was..." Alex broke off when Liz nodded that she understood. "Well, Maria broke into her locker here at the cafe while no-one was around, and found a circle of 'our three friends'..." The way he said that last phrase was clearly emphasized, "And Michael's face was circled. She got a little freaked and started asking if anyone knew where Courtney left when her shift was over, and Jose said that Michael gave Courtney a ride home on the bike."

"Oh, man." Liz groaned.

"Yeah. Maria gets over there, and Michael says that he's just trying to get to the bottom of things, and then Courtney comes into the room wearing a towel and nothing else. Maria freaked out and left at that point."

Liz thought about that. "Well, I can understand why she's upset, and knowing Michael he's probably being a dumbass about it like usual. But I'm not sure he's entirely in the wrong. I mean... what if he really _was_ trying to go undercover, as it were. Pretending he's interested in her as a guy hot for a girl, then using that to figure out her secret." She sighed.

"Yeah, I thought about that too," Alex said. "But I'm not sure if it's a good idea to tell Maria that... she's _really_ upset about the whole thing."

"Maybe that's the best reason to broach the subject with her." Liz stayed silent a moment. "I know that it would tear me up inside if it were Max who had to do something like this... get close to some girl by dating her, kissing her, what have you. But if I knew he was doing it for the right reasons, I could manage. Because I would know that he's thinking about me, inside. I can't believe that Michael really feels more for this Courtney girl than he does for Maria."

"No, not when you put it like that maybe," Alex said. "But I'm not sure I'd put it past him to fool around with a pretty girl for a passing diversion, because she's less high-maintenance than Maria is." Liz frowned at that thought.

#

"I'm not sure that this is a good idea," Tess muttered, slowing down to take the unmarked turn-off that Kyle had pointed out.

"Come on," he whispered. "Trust the earthborn. This is exactly why there's a make out point in every town in America... with enough teenagers."

"We **could** go back to my house..." Tess pointed out. "It wouldn't take too long to fix up a little love nest or something..."

Kyle thought. "Nah, we can try that tomorrow."

Tess laughed, and parked the car in an clear space, away from anybody else, though they could see some cars nearby. "This good?"

"Yeah." Kyle turned the interior light up from 'off' to its dimmest setting and looked speculatively at Tess for a few seconds. "You really don't have much experience with this, do you? What, was that time you and Evans made out in the rain your first kiss?"

"Kyle!" she exclaimed in sudden mortification. "Technically, the second, but the first was so pitiful that I really wish he **was** the first."

That set Kyle back for a second. "What was your life like, before you came here to Roswell, anyway? I mean, I know you and Noriega moved around a lot, but did you go to school like a normal person?"

"Almost like a normal person," she bit back. "I, I dunno, I guess I just-"

"Didn't mix socially with the inferior homo sapiens much?" he asked softly. Tess looked over at him and nodded sadly.

"Well, I have to admit, I'd never have guessed it from those kissed you gave me back in the room. You've got moves, girl; you must be a natural. But I have a little experience in this area, so let me show you something. Come on." He opened his door a crack.

"What, where are you going?" she asked. "I thought we were going to..."

"Back seat," he explained. "More comfortable. No gearshift or other stuff in the way. Does it recline all the way back?"

They sat next to each other on the vaguely-flat back seat. Kyle kissed her again, gently and sweetly, and broke off, looking deep into her eyes in the dim light. He brought his lips back to hers again, but this time they didn't stay there, instead making their way up the side of her face to her ear, and then down her throat to the smooth skin of her neck. Tess gasped at the sensation, her eyes glazing over slightly, her breathing becoming deeper and more regular.

Kyle once again moved off a little and looked at Tess, grinning to himself. "Never felt anything like that before, huh?" She caught his eyes and shook her head a little, still gasping softly. "Necking. Another 'homo sapiens' classic pastime. Well, we explored first base pretty thoroughly this afternoon... wanna give second a try?"

"Second... second base?"

"Yeah. You've heard of it I assume?"

"Well, yes, but never been sure exactly what it..."

"Then let me demonstrate," Kyle chuckled, "and tell me if I'm going too far." His fingers suddenly began to work, quickly and with no apparent lack of ease, on the tiny buttons running down the front of the plain blue cotton shirt she was wearing.

#

A car door opened, and Liz crept out. Out of her mother's car, which she was not allowed to drive, especially not without asking, and very especially not past her curfew. But Mom was asleep already, her father would be watching television for at another forty-five minutes, and she had one small matter to attend to.

She waited until the traffic across Second was clear, (muttering that she should have braved the left turn and parked on the north side if she weren't a wuss,) and hurried over towards the stretch of greenery near the bus stop.

"Yes!" she muttered, finding the object of her search still undisturbed - Whittaker's purse. "Can't believe I forgot this when Max asked to drive me back downtown," she muttered under her breath on her way back. "Though I kinda did need to go with him, and couldn't risk picking it up and having it close to him when I still don't know what setting it's on. But I could have come back here earlier..."

Sighing, she got back behind the steering wheel and realized that she would need to make a left after all, to get back on the street heading west towards home. "Damnit."


	2. Chapter 2

Liz crept out to the fire escape and surveyed the streets and buildings in the morning twilight. After a moment she hurried down to street level.

She walked past the congressional office again, and then turned off the main street. After a few blocks she reached an apartment complex with a spacious courtyard, climbed the staircase, and made her way down the exterior hallway, trying not to be noticed. She paused at the door reading 215. She didn't have a key for this door, at least, not with her. There was a key for it on the key-ring in the office, but if there was no-one to let her in, she had no reason to be here. So she knocked quietly.

After a moment the door opened, and a half-familiar face framed by unfamiliarly long dark hair looked out at her. Max's future self. He let Liz into Vanessa Whittaker's apartment, closed the door, and turned to look at her. "How did you know I'd be here?"

"It seemed the most logical place for you to go. Nice central location, low profile."

"And why have you come?"

"Because there are more questions that I want you to answer," Liz said, staring into his eyes as hard as she could.

After holding the stare for several seconds, Future Max led her into Whittaker's spartan living room. He pulled up a light wooden armchair and sat in it, indicating that Liz should take a seat on the couch, if she pleased. Liz sat, but she didn't feel any pleasure in it. "You have questions?" he said softly. "Ask."

"What's the deal with Courtney?" Liz began. "You found out, didn't you?"

Future Max let out a long groan of frustration. "That is completely beyond the point at issue, and I won't answer it. I told you about needing to be surgical..."

"Yes, you did," Liz shot back. "And I don't buy it. Saying that you mustn't disturb the course of history only makes sense if you like where history ends up. If everything goes to hell anyway, why are you so worried about rocking the damn boat?"

"Because we had fourteen good years before the end came!" Max flared. "If I unbalance the wrong element, you and Max... all of you could die next week instead of in the far future. That doesn't help any of us either."

"Well, maybe you're going to have to risk those years. If we take some chances and they pay off, we might be able to head off the disaster completely." Liz considered for a moment. "But I do realize that information can be harmful. If there's any answer which would certainly be disastrous to reveal, definitively worse than operating out of ignorance, then you can withhold it."

"If I go along with this, answer all your questions other than those, will you agree to work with my plan?" Future Max asked softly.

"No, I won't promise that. But if you want to have any chance of my co-operating, you should give me something to work with here. I promise to give your way of doing things the fair chance it deserves," Liz offered.

"Okay, then," Future Max said after a moment. "Courtney's a skin, like Whittaker, but her loyalties were different - she's not an enemy and not really a friend. She belongs to a group who believed that Michael... or 'Michael before he died', should have been in charge of our planet." Liz drew in a surprised breath. "Yeah, that was my reaction too..."

#

Kyle was a little surprised to see Tess eating at the table alone when he entered the kitchen. Her hair was falling about her head in those signature windswept curls, and she was wearing a green top with a scoop neck and short sleeves. He grabbed a bagel and popped it into the miniature oven. "Where's..."

"He walked down to the corner to drop a few bills into the mailbox before morning pickup," Tess said to him, putting down her cereal spoon, "so we don't have long. I've told your father that I'll be working on my geography assignment today after school, and then maybe catching a movie. You will come home right after the end of eighth class, work on any homework you might have, eat dinner with him, and generally do anything you can to deflect suspicion. At seven thirty you will give him some excuse that has nothing to do with movies of any kind, leave, and come to my old house. Do you know how to find it?"

"Umm... no," Kyle muttered, taken off guard by this monologue. Tess produced a small scrap of paper from inside her shirt and passed it to him. Kyle opened up the single fold and saw that there were directions on it.

"Don't let him see that. When we're done, I'll come back home first, and then you follow twenty-five minutes later." Tess focused on eating her cereal at that point, and within a minute, Jim walked in and started making an egg-white omelette.

Kyle managed to catch one quick moment to talk alone with Tess before she headed out to her car. "When we're done... _what_ exactly?"

She tweaked his cheek softly. "Sometimes you ask the stupidest questions. When we're finished with round two." And she strolled off.

#

Max found Maria at her locker outside the art room. "How's it going?"

"Umm... not too great, you?" She flashed a quick smile to apologize for over-sharing.

"I've had better weeks," Max admitted. "Liz paid me an unusual visit yesterday. Have you noticed anything weird about her? Has she been acting moody, secretive or anything like that?"

Maria gave the question a few second's thought. "No - I can't say that I've noticed anything, but I haven't really been paying much attention to Liz lately." She smiled awkwardly. "Maybe I should crawl out of the self-pity shell and take a little interest in the world around me."

"That might be an idea," Max said mildly. "I wasn't trying to send you on the guilt trip though, just curious about if you'd noticed anything. From what I've heard, you've had enough going on in your own little soap opera."

Maria cocked her head. "Who told you?"

"I've picked up pieces here and there. Michael, Alex. Even Jose."

Maria didn't push that subject any further. "Any idea when Isabel's going to be back? I think Alex misses seeing her around."

"Tomorrow or the day after," he answered. "We're not sure."

"Why did she go, anyway?"

Max made a gesture towards the nearest stairwell, and Maria quickly packed up her things and followed as he led the way out to a quiet corner of the school grounds. "Well," he began after checking that they seemed to be alone, "she's been upset about stuff ever since discovering the 'G', and Isabel likes to disappear into community service when she's feeling frustrated. It helps take her mind off other things."

"There was an outbreak of strep in a town up north a few hours from here, Rencona. Nothing serious, but a large fraction of the town was sick, there aren't many facilities, and the local doctor was looking for a few hardy young people to help out. I'm not quite sure how Isabel found out about it, but she volunteered. Mom checked the whole thing out to make sure it was legit, and Isabel went up last weekend. The crisis is over by now, lots of people recovered but the doctor is insisting that Isabel stick around so he can check and make sure that **she** doesn't get sick."

Maria nodded. "Okay. I guess I'll go look for Liz now."

"If you find her, tell her that I'm waiting for an answer," Max said. Maria shot him a look, and Max replied with a whimsical shrug. "She'll know what it means... and I'm not going to tell you. Maybe she will."

#

In the cafeteria, a tall boy with spiky black hair brought his tray over to the table where Michael was eating alone. "Hey, man, do you mind?"

"What do I care?" Michael said. The newcomer took a seat and started digging into his French fries.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he asked after a moment. Michael didn't respond. "Nicky Swaid. I'm in the Whits, with Alex and Maria... I play guitar." Michael grunted and took a bite of his sandwich.

There was a short pause, and Nicky seemed to be getting nervous. "So... do you have any plans for the weekend?" he asked.

"Probably working."

"Yeah, yeah, I get that. Are you going to have any time free? I'm just asking..." Michael looked up and stared at the other boy at this point, a truly frustrated expression on his face. "Okay, okay, sheesh! You don't want to be bothered? I'm gone!" And with that Nicky beat a quick retreat and went back to sit with Marcos Manes.

#

Maria found Liz sitting by herself in the study hall room, jotting something down in a spiral-ring notebook. "Why, if it isn't Liz Parker!" Liz's reaction was quite extraordinary. She dropped her pen on the desk, whipped the book closed and snatched it away. For a second Maria actually thought that Liz was about to slip the pad between the chair and her bottom, sitting on the book in an attempt to hide it - she didn't, but held it at her side away from Maria, so that Liz's body was obscuring it as much as possible.

"Umm, hi Maria, what's up?" she said, calming down a little and clearly trying to act as if nothing was wrong. Maria's face developed a slight frown as she considered that.

"Well, I was just looking for you because I know I've been lost in my own little drama for the past few days... what were you working on, Liz?"

"Whatcha mean?"

"Well, maybe I shouldn't ask, but it was hard not to notice that you were going a mile a minute in that notebook until you realized I was here... the one that you're trying very hard to make invisible at the moment." Maria shrugged. "I guess I'll just drop the subject, though -" She hesitated, dropping into another chair and turning it around. "No, I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't at least ask if something was bugging you."

Liz's face contorted a little. "There is, but I... **I can't talk about it!**" The last phrase came out in a high-pitched, soft squeal that was quite unusual for Liz.

Maria pouted. "I thought you could tell me about anything... but it's okay, I'll just - I'll move right along."

"Okay," Liz said. "Anything new happen in the Michael/Courtney drama?"

"Not really. Alex told you too?"

"Pretty much." Liz sighed. "He said you were pretty mad about the towel incident."

"I was mad last night... well, mad or devastated; pretty close race to call. Today -" She groaned. "I realize that there could be a couple of different explanations for what I saw, but... I don't want to ask him about it. I certainly don't want to ask _her_ about anything." Maria took a deep breath. "Maybe I should just avoid the whole situation and see what things look like when I feel like my head's together."

"That might be a good idea," Liz agreed with a smile. "I wish I could do that."

Maria looked probingly into Liz's eyes. "Is this one of those things that I should just ignore, and let you tell me about when you're ready?"

"That would be wise."

Maria cocked her head a moment, looking for a new topic, and then remembered one. "Oh, Max said that he's still waiting for an answer, and I admit I'm wondering what the question was."

Liz giggled nervously. "He asked me out... to a Gomez concert, really."

"Oh, the show up in Santa Fe? Does this have anything to do with the situation that you can't really talk about?"

"It might be somewhat related..." Liz hedged.

#

Max was still walking in the vicinity of the school when he heard his name being called. "Oh, hi Alex. How's it going?"

"Okay I guess. You?"

"Not having the best day I suppose." Max sighed, and Alex fell into step beside him. "Isabel should be back in town by Saturday."

"Is there any particular reason you felt you had to tell me that?" Alex asked, a bit of a joking tone in his voice.

"Maria suggested that you would want to know." Max paused. "Are you missing her?"

" I'm not sure," Alex admitted. "It's been different not seeing her around at school or the Crashdown. On the other hand, well, it's no big secret that I've been frustrated that our relationship isn't where I'd like it to be, or even where it was last spring. The fact that she's taken off for a few days - maybe it's helping me get a few things into perspective. I'm not sure."

"I hope you're not upset that I brought it up," Max said quietly.

"No, I'm not, thanks for saying so."

"Okay."

"How about you and our Miss Parker?" Alex asked after a quiet moment "Any interesting developments recently?"

"I asked her to this concert up in Santa Fe: she hasn't given me an answer yet." Max sighed. "She's been acting a little weird."

"Hmm..." Alex weighed that one over. "She didn't seem out of the ordinary when I saw her at the cafe last night... a little lost in her own thoughts maybe, but that's Liz for you. Have you got any specifics, or is it just a nebulous sensation?"

"It's the Andromeda nebula," Max joked. "Actually, she said a few things to me yesterday that were definitely strange, and when I gave her a lift to the Cafe she ran off towards Whittaker's office."

"Well, she probably wanted to check for messages and return them... we're still not to let anyone clue in that the alien senator is missing in action, right?"

"Yeah, but... my nebula sensor is still on yellow alert," Max said. "And Whittaker wasn't a senator, just a congresswoman."

"Hmm." Alex wasn't sure what to say for a moment. "Oh, hi Kyle."

"What are you looking at me like that for?" Kyle Valenti snapped, staring angrily at Max, and shooting a nasty look at Alex just for good measure. "I'm walking here; I got nothing to say to either of you!" He hurried past.

Max and Alex shared a look. "Nebula sensor?" Alex repeated.

"Red alert... but I don't think I want to know what that one's about," Max joked.

#

"I'm telling you the truth, Liz!" Max's future self flared. "We **never** found out much about my home world or any of that stuff. This is a fact that you are simply going to have to accept!" He took a deep breath, realized how frightened the expression on Liz's face was, and immediately softened. " I'm sorry, Liz. Once the two of us were together again, I... I didn't really want to know about that stuff any more. And I think that Isabel and Michael felt the same way."

"Hmm..." Liz mulled that over. "Do you think that might have been part of the problem? 'Know your enemy, know yourself, and you will prevail in all your battles.' You didn't learn about either your enemies or your heritage... and you got your ass kicked! I'm think that wasn't a coincidence."

"Umm..." He considered that. "Who was that line from... the know your enemy bit?"

"Sun Tzu I think."

"Since when have you been learning about Sun Tzu?" he asked.

"For a little while now, and _don't_ change the subject!"

"Well, I don't know... there might have been a connection between that choice and our defeat," he admitted reluctantly. "I have to admit, I didn't expect to come here and have you challenge all of my assumptions. I don't know, maybe you lost some of that fire by... well, by the time you're..."

"A little old lady of thirty-something?" Liz teased. "Maybe I'd just been making all the same assumptions. If the two of us spent that much time together so close, I wouldn't be too surprised that we'd be thinking alike in a lot of ways." She considered that. "Okay, well, let's set the home world stuff aside; maybe speculate on it a little later, but there's probably nothing more we can do. Back to earth... what more can you tell me about the Copper Summit skins?"

"I can't think of anything," Max sighed. "We didn't have close contact with many of them... T Greer, Ida and Walt, and of course Nicholas - I've told you about them."

"By the way, speaking of Greer," Liz dug something out of a backpack. "I was looking through a few things in Whittaker's office, and I noticed this. It was postmarked Copper Summit, so I opened it."

"The fact that it was marked private didn't stop you?" Future Max joked, and Liz shot him a warning look. "I think I remember the letter you mean, but why don't you hit the main points?"

Liz nodded. "It's from some place called the 'universal friendship league,' which sounds freaky all by itself... dear member, your failure to report violates protocol - must receive word by the 29th - which is Sunday, in three days - or terminate your membership effective that date." She shook her head. "It sounds like a dead man's switch... if she doesn't call in, they're going to act under the assumption that she's been taken out by an enemy; which she was, actually."

"You're right on the money there," Future Max said. "Specifically, they're going to fake her death, so that nobody starts asking questions about a missing congresswoman and investigating her background."

Liz nodded. "That background is interesting reading. She left her hometown for college, looking quite mature for a freshman. Graduated from U Denver in three years, got a job with a large advertising firm and became a regional assistant director in five years, then quit after John Whittaker asked her to marry him. That's a great way of winning an elected office quickly, by the way, if you can manage it."

"Yeah," Max sighed.

"I wonder how she managed to hook him - Whittaker never seemed to have sex appeal that I could tell." Max shot Liz a look. "But to get back to the point," she said, "what I really wanted to ask you about was this." She showed him the small line at the bottom of the letter, beneath T Greer's name. "Senior Co-ordinator, Vilandra Project. Any idea what Vilandra is?"

Max's future self just shook his head for several long seconds. "How in all the worlds did you know that name was important?"

Liz shook her head, surprise clear on her face. "I was following a hunch, I guess - why?"

"Well, I'll tell you what I know, which is a fair bit - if you agree to be discreet. Isabel would be _extremely_ suspicious and defensive if you mention that name to her out of the blue."

"Why Isabel?" Liz asked

"Do you agree?" Future Max insisted, and stared at Liz until she nodded. "Well, Vilandra was the name of Isabel's past self back on our home world. The old king's daughter, who died in the revolution."

"Okay, I'm with you so far," Liz said. "Do you know any of the other names, by the way?"

"Don't interrupt. The night that Whittaker kidnapped Tess and confronted Isabel alone at the power plant, she told Isabel that Vilandra had betrayed the rest of us to Kivar, that the two of them had secretly been lovers. That same storyline has been mentioned by Kivar's people - Nicholas, for one."

"Wait a second," Liz said. "If they were in love, and Vilandra betrayed the others, why was she killed too?"

"We've never gotten a good answer to that question," he agreed. "Maybe Kivar was only cultivating Vilandra as a way to get to the rest of the royals, and then her usefulness to him was over. Maybe he wasn't there when they died and wasn't able to save her from overzealous henchmen. Maybe he didn't want to admit to his supporters that he loved her." There was a pause. "Or maybe the whole thing was a crock, meant to keep us off balance and ferment mistrust. The point is Isabel was... is really upset about it now... she won't tell us the story for several months."

"Okay. Why did Whittaker tell her this, anyway? Just to torture her, or..."

"She was trying to persuade Isabel to betray us again. Deliver the Granolith to her, so that she could take it back to Kivar. But this was before any of us knew that the Granolith was there behind the pod chamber."

"Right, Isabel found it later that night," Liz agreed. "The day of her birthday party. And that's how you guys knew what to call it."

"Yeah," Future Max agreed. "Now, I don't know what happened in our past lives, and I don't care. But I trusted Isabel absolutely. She would never do anything to hurt me, or Michael, or any of the rest of you - and she gave up her life protecting me. In fact, Kivar came and tried to turn 'Vilandra' against us, and Isabel was never tempted. She turned it around, working her way into **his** confidence."

"Okay," Liz said, nodding slightly. "I'll be careful with that info, don't worry." She concentrated, and then picked up another thread, packing the Friendship league letter away again.

"What happened to Nicholas? Did he die, that you know of, or is he still leading the attack in the future?"

"He got careless... Michael threw him off a cliff in Yosemite, and as far as we could tell, he didn't survive the fall. That was... seven years ago, my time." He looked into Liz's eyes. "Make sure that he's the one who gets careless first, and not any of you guys. He's frighteningly powerful and dangerous... and the frustration he feels from being trapped in the body of an awkward preteen just adds to the danger."

"Got it." Liz nodded

"Courtney can probably give you all of this material and better - and more. These are her contemporaries. If you get in touch with her, which I think you're planning, you won't need my intel."

"I decide that," Liz muttered under her breath. "You have an advantage over Courtney - fifteen years of future perspective."

"What's the situation with Courtney and Michael right now?"

"I haven't talked with him directly, since it started." Liz started pacing. "Maria's upset about finding the two of them together, even though she's willing to keep an open mind that he wasn't cheating on her..."

"Oh god, that's it!" Future Max breathed. "Finding 'them' together, cheating... that's the perfect way. We have to have Max find you with another guy! Alex maybe, or Kyle..."

"No!" Liz yelled. "Forget it; I am not going to do that!"

"You have to." He ran over to her. "You've got a lot of good ideas, but nothing solid. The plan that Liz and I worked out in my time is still the best way of making sure that we have Tess' abilities to draw on, which is the best way of making _sure_ that the future is saved. Everything else would be a big gamble. You have to do this for me... or I will do what I need to do some other way."

"Just what are you threatening, Max?"

"I don't know yet... I don't want to have to resort to a plan B, and this cheating thing won't work without your co-operation, I admit that. But maybe I'll go to Michael, or to Tess herself... if you force me to it." He took a deep breath. "Or if alll else fails... I **will** remove you from the picture, Liz. It would devastate my past self, but he'll recover, and Tess will be right there. If you aren't here, then you can never drive Tess away, never marry me. It would be the safest way, and though it would kill me inside to do that to you..."

"'Remove me from the picture...'" Liz's face was a mask of horror. "Can you even hear yourself, Max? You're talking about killing me."

"As a last ditch plan. Liz, I don't _want_ to do that, but if I had to - I would."

"And don't you see that that could ruin your plans? If I die suddenly, don't you think that Max might push Tess himself? God, she'd be the prime suspect! It's not like any of them would suspect that you did it."

"I can make it look like an accident," Future Max growled, his mouth a thin hard line.

"To this group?" Liz laughed shortly. "Considering all the weirdness we've seen and all the secrets we're keeping? Any one of us punches out within two years, and somebody is going to go on a crusade to find out the killer... no matter how much like it looks like an accident, suicide, coincidence or natural causes!"

Future Max just shot her a look that reminded Liz that her friends crusading to find her killer would be very little comfort.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal," Liz said. "Let's leave the threats aside. I'll go over to Kyle's place right now, lay the groundwork in case without telling him much of what's up. Then you give me 'til tomorrow morning to find a concrete plan... one that you can't argue your way out of." A desperate idea was starting to form in the back of her mind, and she knew she had to try to keep Future Max from guessing what she was thinking of. "If I can't, then I'll go along with your lead, all the way."

"Okay," Max said, surprised at the sudden change in Liz's attitude. "I can give you that long."

Liz nodded. "One other thing. The black pentagon things... did you ever figure out how to work them?"

Future Max blinked in surprise. "Umm... the Trithium amplification generators?"

"The thing that Brody Davis had in the UFO center... we think maybe the skins have them too. I don't know what they're really called."

"Yeah, those things. We've learned a little, why do you ask?"

"I found one in Whittaker's office," Liz said, and Future Max literally smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "You guys never thought of that one?"

"I guess not."

Liz brought out the same slip of paper that she had shown her own Max, and the 2014 version quickly indicated brief descriptions of the various functions... standby mode, tracking, stun setting, power nullifier, and a more powerful energy charge that would also take away alien powers from anyone it hit. He also pointed out that the pentagon in Whittaker's office had to be on a harmless setting, either off or tracking, since some of the hybrids had been near it without eliciting a reaction or noticing losing their powers. She hadn't had to be worried about taking it near Max the day before.

"And you're sure that neither of the pulses hurt normal humans."

"Sure... you, Maria, and Kyle have all been through them without feeling anything," he confirmed.

"Okay, well, I've got to run now," Liz told him. "I'll leave you a note when I've made my decision."

Max nodded. "Okay. Are you walking all that way?"

Liz shook her head. "There's a bus stop for the orange line a few blocks away from. I'll take that by Kyle's place, and then downtown."

#

"Hello Liz," Jim Valenti said after answering the door. "Are you here to see Kyle?"

"Yes, please." Liz followed Jim to the dining room. Kyle was working at one end of the table, consulting his textbooks and writing with a cheap pen on loose sheets of lined paper. Jim sat back down at the other end of the table and picked up the world events section of the paper.

"Umm... hi Kyle." Liz gave him a quick wave, but the boy barely acknowledged her existence. "Could I have a moment? In private?"

Kyle looked up at that, and shot a rapid sequence of glances around in a confusing pattern between his books, Liz, and his father, who was still sitting at the other end of the table, paying more attention to unrest in Ivory Coast than to either of them. "Sure," he said after a moment, without any enthusiasm.

They adjourned to the back yard, and Kyle became more attentive. "Hey, sorry Liz, what's up?"

"I might have to ask you a favour," Liz said. "I'd rather not go into details now, but are you busy tomorrow night?"

Kyle's face creased with indecision. "I don't actually know. Can you give me a general idea what it's about?"

"Well, it has to do with Max... Come on, Kyle; just keep your schedule open for a little bit. I don't think it's likely to come up, but I had to ask..."

"Okay, Liz, for you I can spare the time." He sighed. "Is that it? Because I need to get back to this geometry homework." Liz nodded, and they headed back in.

"Hey, Liz, do you have time to enjoy some of my famous macaroni Neapolitan?" Jim asked as they passed back through the kitchen. "Tess won't be here for dinner, and it would be a little weird only making enough for two."

Liz grinned. "Actually, that sounds great."

#

Kyle wandered around the abandoned house, swinging his flashlight to and fro as he searched for stairs leading up. The front door had been locked, and Kyle had gone in through a small door from the back garden. "Now, let's see... if the bottom of the staircase is near the front door, then that should be..." he muttered, caught sight of the goal, and begun to climb his way up it.

Once at the top landing, it wasn't hard for Kyle to find his way... all he needed to do was follow the vibes. Thrumming bass notes were ringing off the floor and the walls, and by orienting on them Kyle made his way down a short hallway without trouble and into a room.

Tess had not been wasting time since school let out. Her bedroom must have needed a cleaning, for it showed no signs of the disorder that remained through the rest of the house following that mysterious break-in that had driven Max to take Tess to the Valenti's house for her safety. The bed, which seemed to be a king-size, was freshly made.

Power had been cut in the house by now, but battery-powered lights had been set up here and a boom box was playing something with a soft, smoky beat. And speaking of smoky... some contraption had been set up on the desk... with a small candle burning at the bottom of it. A blue glass dish was suspended six inches above the flame, and it was giving off faintly visible fumes. Kyle guessed the dish was also the source of the intense aromas blending in the room... wild roses, sandalwood, orange and cinnamon, jasmine, sage, and cedar. The mix of scents enticed some deep part of his being to come out and play. This entire setup was sexy - he had to give Tess that much credit.

And Tess was lying on the bed waiting for him, her legs kicked up in boredom and her arms linked just underneath her knees. After a few seconds, she suddenly realized that he had walked in, and stood up to meet him. She was still wearing the same green shirt from that morning, and the long denim skirt, and her curls glinted in light reflecting off the ceiling.

"Wow..." Kyle blurted out. "I know you said you'd fix the place up, but... I have to admit, this is amazing."

"Thank you," she said smoothly, crossing behind him to close the door, and then walking back. Kyle couldn't help but let his eyes stray to the way her body moved... her thighs shifting back and forth underneath that thick denim, the edges of her chest pushing against the top. "I think that comes off now." For a second, Kyle didn't understand, and then he realized she was gesturing to his jacket... it wasn't really cool enough outside that he needed it yet, and his pulse started to race as she let her fingers close around one of the cuffs and pulled it off, then tossed it onto the doorknob.


	3. Chapter 3

Liz sat very still on her bed and listened. The television was playing in the living room. Traffic outside. She thought she could even make out the sound of someone adjusting their position on the couch.

Not a peep from the cafe downstairs, the rest of the apartment, or her balcony - at least nothing that she could make out over the sound of the television. Breathing softly, Liz put her back up against the headboard of the bed, so that both the door and the balcony window were in her peripheral vision, and reached under her mattress for the slim book she had taken out of its hole in the wall a few minutes before. She flipped to a fresh page, extracted a blue ballpoint from the pencil holder sitting on her bedside table, and began to write in neat, flowing script:

"It's difficult to believe that I haven't written in this journal since last spring. It was such an important part of my life last year... but then there are a lot of things about my life that changed that night I looked out of the Cafe's front door and saw Max kissing Tess in the rain. I didn't even bring the journal to Florida this summer... there were too many memories in it that I wanted to forget for a while.

"But now I feel like there are things I need to confess, before I go and do what I'm afraid to do, and this journal will have to be my confidante, since I'm not sure who else I can trust to tell before it's done. I don't even think I can bear to commit the full story to paper, just in case, so I'll be putting in a few euphemisms, but that's okay because I'm the only one who needs to understand just yet.

"I'll just call the guy 'Him' for now. I'm very scared of Him right now.

"Is it at all possible that the Max I know could ever - be connected to Him, in the way that he says? It doesn't seem conceivable... He is so single-minded and obsessed, and he's threatening the most horrible things. Could He mean them? Maybe it's just a big bluff to get me to co-operate... but even that seems like a stretch, were He who he said he was. And I get the awful sensation that whoever He really is, he means those threats.

"Maybe I'm judging Him too harshly... I can't imagine what it was like to go through what he said he went through. To see so many of the people I loved die... And - and FL was involved in devising the original plan, he said, though I have to assume He didn't mention this 'contingency B' to her. Maybe he hadn't even thought of what might be necessary until he left her and met me. Still, this doesn't add up... if what He's told me is true, there has to be a better way. Maybe neither of them were thinking clearly.

"I managed to get the last thing I'll need at Valenti's this afternoon, when neither Kyle nor the sheriff were watching. Even if He was following me, I had already told him I'd be going to go talk to Kyle.

"Now, I just have to hope that the time-space continuum is forgiving enough to let me cheat death and get away with it."

Liz considered that for a long moment... fiddled with her pen as if considering adding something, and then apparently decided to let that melodramatic ending speak for itself. She returned the pen to its place, and spent a few minutes fiddling with the invisibly loose brick in her wall to return the journal to its hiding place. Then she went out to make herself a light snack.

#

Stars.

Five bright, shining lights in a V shape. Most of them slightly different intensities and colors... One reddish and another orange-yellow. Two blue.

The stars faded as Kyle floated back to consciousness. He blinked his eyes, realizing that he was lying down on his back on the bed in Tess' old room, and she was snuggled up against his side.

"So, do you have something up your sleeve for next time?" he asked lazily, "or is it my turn to plan a date again?"

"I'm not quite sure that I'd planned beyond this," Tess said softly. "I... well, to explain, I'd have to break your rule."

Kyle sighed. "Go ahead."

"I was mad at Max," she admitted softly. "I think I still love him, but it pisses me off royally that he's still mooning over Liz. So I wanted my first time to be with someone else, to deprive him of that. And you were... um, convenient. Kind of fucked up logic, huh?"

"Maybe a little," Kyle admitted, and decided to introduce a new subject. "Well, maybe you should be getting up to head home. I have to wait long enough after that it won't be suspicious, right?"

"Are you kicking me out of my own bed?" she shot back. "Is it that you've got a problem with me just lying here next to you a bit longer? 'Cause I was enjoying myself, thanks! We've got time."

Kyle laughed. "Sorry. I take that back. Take all the time you need."

"Thanks." She stretched against him, making him delightfully aware of her nakedness under the covers, and kissed him on the ear sweetly. "I have to admit, I didn't really expect it to be like this. Nasedo said that it would be different for us than for normal humans... a 'deeper' connection, but he didn't really go into details."

"It was incredible for me too," Kyle said. "I've been with girls before - my own kind, you know, but it seemed shallower than this."

"I didn't realize it would be like this," Tess repeated. "But I **do** think I want to give you that next time." She crawled down to the foot of the bed, off, and started to collect her clothes and get dressed. "Let me know when."

"I'll think about it," Kyle replied with a grin. "Tell you what; meet me in the eraser room fifth period tomorrow. We probably won't be able to do **it** right there, but we can have a little fun, what do you say?"

She pulled on her shirt (without even bothering with the bustier,) and looked over her shoulder at him. "Whatever trims your lamp, Buddha-boy!"

#

A telephone circuit hummed into connection. In a small apartment near Atkinson Avenue, the receiver was picked up before it had finished ringing once. "Yo."

"Hey, Michael?" There was a soft grunt of acknowledgement. "It's Max here. I just wanted to give you a ring and touch base."

"Well, you've gotten that far already," Michael said.

Somewhat taken aback, Max pushed the chair he was sitting in away from his bedroom desk and closed his eyes. "About the Courtney situation, specifically. I didn't want to step on your toes really, but -"

"Why is it that everyone seems to think that they have a right to stick their faces into my business?" Michael exploded. "If Maria has a problem with the Courtney investigation, that's between me and her. Nobody else!"

"Of course." Max paused. "I'm not trying to butt into that side of things. Just wondered if you had any proof that Courtney was a 'player' yet."

"Oh." Michael deflated a little. "Not yet man, sorry. I'll let you know tomorrow evening."

"I won't be here," Max pointed out. "Gomez, remember?"

"Oh, right. Did you hear back from Liz yet?"

"Nah, I'm still sitting on 'maybe.'"

"That's not good," Michael said. "You're letting yourself look like some lovesick groveler, waiting for her to get back to you at the last minute. Either way, she keeps the upper hand; and it's just not attractive."

"Forgive me for not taking relationship advice from a guy in your shoes," Max said, and then reconsidered. "Maybe I'll tell her it's her last chance tomorrow morning when I see her."

"Or tell her she waited too long," Michael suggested. "Is there anything else?"

"Nah, man. Talk to you on Saturday if we don't see each other tomorrow."

"Right." And Michael rang off with that single word.

#

"Oh, hey Kyle," Maria said as she stepped up to one of the smaller tables in the dining room. There was a second, and then she asked "What happened?"

"Umm, well..." Kyle froze, and then caught himself. "Nothing really. What makes you think something happened?"

"I don't know, you just look different." Maria thought about it for a second. "Mellow, actually."

Kyle flushed. "Can I order now?"

"Well, go ahead, am I stopping you?"

He shook his head. "Eclipse burger with fries, and a diet coke." Maria nodded, and before she could turn away Kyle took a little shot. "So, Guerin's stepping out on you huh?"

"What? No! Well - I'm not sure really." Maria was staring at him with considerable anger. "Michael's been spending some time with Courtney, yeah, but he said that there was nothing going on there."

"Oh, man, are you serious?" Kyle laughed. "Yeah - I believe that one."

She turned and stormed off without another word.

#

Liz snuck up to the door of Whittaker's apartment again, fumbled a piece of paper out of her pocket, and read it by the faint lights shining down on the walkway. It went like this:

"FM:

Alright, I don't have any other option. Meet me in the Eighth street Park at first light, on the south side of the soccer field. We can go over your plan re: me, Max, and Kyle.

Liz.

PS: For the record, first light tomorrow will be at five minutes to 6 am."

She slipped the note under the door and disappeared back into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

There wasn't much street light where Liz waited at the edge of the soccer field, but enough for her to mostly see where she was walking, and to notice the figure walking towards her long before he spoke. "Okay, I'm here, and when you asked, not that I see much light," Future Max said. "What's the deal? Are you going to go along with my plan, or just give me more grief?"

"Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm agreeing to play ball," Liz replied. "I have one question, though... How do you know when your planning has succeeded? When are you going to stop meddling in my life - when you go whoosh, bam and whiff out?"

"Pretty much," he agreed cautiously. "When the timelines are changed enough that they don't lead back to me going back in the granolith, then my physical body can't remain here, though the consequences of the intervention continue on. Serena said that I should be able to fell the course of history starting to move... or snapping back into place, as it were... but I won't rest easy until I'm not here at all."

"Snapping back into place," Liz muttered to herself. "So is that when the course of history _probably_ won't end up in the same place, or _certainly_?"

Max quirked his thirty-something face at that. "Probably? I didn't you were someone who believed that the universe played dice with us, Liz."

"Well maybe it was a poor choice of words," she muttered. "I believe in free choice, not predestination... not that my future depends irreversibly on the conditions of my past and my present. Which means... if we do this thing, and I fake sleeping with Kyle and make sure present-Max catches us, you whiff out, and I go and tell Max immediately what I did and why... that'll change the course of history again, right? Maybe I'll even do something that leads right back to the invasion, and the end of the world."

Max froze. "You wouldn't."

"No, actually I wouldn't," Liz agreed. "But I **could.** Does that mean that you're going to stay until the timelines have changed enough that _no_ action of mine can lead Max's life back to where you started? How long would that take - months, or years? Assuming that Serena was right about this 'whiff-out' effect in the first place, that is... otherwise you just stick around forever."

"Liz... what are you getting at?" Future Max said.

"I'm trying to show you why I will **not** play this out by your rules," she said. "No matter what you tell me, I'm not going to give up on us - on Max and I being together, starting today. Not as long as I can still fight for our future together. 'I will go down with this ship, and I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door. I'm in love and always will be.'"

Future Max shook his head. "Do you realize that's a bleak and fatalistic song? It's about a girl who can't accept that the relationship with the guy she loves is over, that he dumped her."

"Maybe, yeah," Liz said. "But I'll take the chorus anyway, and breathe new hope into it. Max never left me, and even though I walked away, he hasn't given up on me. That's all the opportunity I need." She reached a hand into her jacket pocket. "But you're standing in the way. I don't intend to let you go to Michael or Tess now, and I can't trust that you won't be desperate enough to hurt me, I have to write you off the stage, the only way that I can."

Future Max froze in fear, and reached up a hand, focusing his attention on Liz. But he was too late. It took a fraction of a second for Liz to twist the ominous black pentagon, and a wave of blue force spread out around her, staggering Future Max to his knees and forcing a cry of pain from his lips. He moaned for a long moment and looked up at her. "Why?"

"Because you were so determined to ruin everything I might have with Max, and to devastate my life in the process," Liz told him. "I'm not a psychologist, maybe you have deep unresolved guilt about how you got back together with me and handled things badly with Tess, and because of that, when the disaster came, you and future me - you decided that the only penance strong enough to wipe out your suffering was to give up that happiness. But I don't agree with that choice."

"You came back here to fix your past, to set it from one course, charted in stone, to another. But your past is still my future, and my future has **not** been written yet! I refuse to let **anyone** else, even you, take those choices away from me. No one else is going to choose my destiny."

"But... but," Max muttered, but he couldn't seem to put anything else into words. Liz was just getting started.

"You're not the one to fix this, Max... not you, you. You warned me of the danger, and I'll always be grateful, but you don't have the perspective to find the right solution. You don't belong in this time, you have no right to interfere. As much as it kills me..." Liz took something else out of her pocket, "I'm going to have to remove you."

She'd taken the Beretta pistol from the locked cabinet at Valenti's house when no-one was watching, thanks to a paper clip trick that Kyle taught her a year ago.

"You're going to kill _me_?" Future Max whispered, looking at the gun as if he still didn't understand it. "But... it was a bluff, Liz. I would never - there's no way I could ever harm one hair on your head, deliberately. I just hoped that _saying_ I would - it might scare you straight, might get you to agree..."

"I know that," she said, her throat starting to tighten. "I never believed that you would snuff out my life, here and now. If you could ever have been the sort of person who would do that, you'd never have run up to me in the Crashdown after I got shot. But - from where I stand, it's different. No matter how difficult it's going to be for me to look at your face and pull the trigger, I know I'm not really ending your life. Because my Max's life **is** your life, and with the knowledge, the information you've given me, I'll be able to protect him. And you damn well better believe that I will _never_ let him go back in time to this week, because I know that I'll be waiting for him here, with the gun."

Future Max smiled a little, accepting the odd situation. "So what would you do instead, if the end of the world approaches, and you know how to go back in time?" he asked.

"Then I go back myself, come to Max," Liz said with a laugh. "I wouldn't bother with any of this 'falling out of love' crap - there must be many different tactics to try. Maybe we'll go round and round a few times before figuring a way out of the loop."

"And if you **don't** get the time travel technique one time?"

"Then we've played the game as best we can, and lost." Liz sighed. "You'll be there to see it, I guess, but you won't remember this."

He nodded. "Take good care of me, Liz."

She pulled the trigger. Time had run out - the self-preservation instinct might have pushed Future Max to try something desperate, no matter how much he appreciated the truth in theory. The explosion in her hands, the flash of light, and the sound, the wave of air and trace of smoke coming from the small gun surprised her, but not enough that she didn't see the gunshot wound in Future Max's neck. Liz's breath caught, and she would have sobbed if her throat hadn't seized up. Then he collapsed to the ground... and blasted away into dust.

Liz stood there for a moment, tears running down her face, struggling _**not**_ to let go of the pistol, no matter how hot it felt in her hand. A breeze started to blow just then, picking up the remains of her time-travelling love into the air and carrying them along. It wouldn't be long, she realized, before there wouldn't even be a pile of dust left.

She spent a little while looking for the bullet, actually found it, still stained with blood, and looked to see if she had anything she could put it in. In her left pants pocket, she found a small white paper bag, all crumpled up, and she smoothed it out flat. The paper read 'Madame Vivian's Know Your Future.' After getting her cards read earlier that week, Liz had been feeling grateful enough to spend extra money on a souvenir, a gold-plated pendant with two hands clasping each other, on a thin silver chain. She was still wearing it now.

The fortune teller had claimed that as long as she wore the pendant, the bonds that connected her with her true love would be protected.

#

Michael knocked on the door. Several minutes later the door opened, revealing an unhappy Amy DeLuca. "Oh, hi Michael. What do you want?"

"Umm... I came to see Maria. Are you okay, Mrs. DeLuca? You don't look that well."

"I'm not," she grumped. "Bad cold - you'd probably better not get too close, or you'll catch it too."

"Oh, not to worry," he said. "I have a very strong immune system - never get sick. May I come in?"

Amy considered a moment. "Maria may not be happy to see you, but... I think she's having breakfast in the TV room." She stepped aside and let Michael inside, before closing the front door and heading up the stairs.

Michael found Maria sitting in the old sweat pants and tank top she sometimes wore to bed, watching videos with the volume turned up, which might have been one reason she didn't answer the door herself. The sour, depressed expression on her face was another, and guessing that it might have been Michael could qualify as a third.

"Hi," he said. "I was hoping to be able to talk to you."

"So talk." Maria took another bite of dry cornflakes.

"I'd rather not have to compete with Enrique."

That remark struck Maria as completely hilarious. "Yeah, like you'd stand a chance." But she produced a remote from the couch cushions and hit the 'Power' button.

Michael took a moment to gather his thoughts. "We have an odd dynamic, and I think it doesn't really hinge on my Albanian status, just the kind of people that we are."

"That's 'Czechoslovakian,' if you were groping for the reference that I think you were," she pointed out. "But continue."

"I'm well aware that, when we first met... I wasn't the most - sympathetic, or peaceful, or respectable guy you'd ever come across." He laughed hollowly. "Even putting aside all the stuff that I'm never going to be just because I wouldn't still be me, there are some things that I didn't like about myself. Things that I think you wanted me to be, that I wanted to be too. Maybe that's part of what drew me toward you... I looked at you and saw all the things that I could be, because you thought I could."

"But... as much as we care about each other, I think there's another side of it. If we're together, and you don't have faith in me, I don't have faith in myself either. If you're thinking the worst of me, I start to think the worst about myself. If you have low expectations of me..." He cleared his throat. "Then I **immediately** start to live down to them." He sighed. "And you have low expectations of me a lot recently. I can't say that I'm surprised, considering the kind of crap I've put you through since spring, but it's not healthy for me and it's not healthy for us."

"So... I'm thinking maybe it'd be better to take a clean break from 'us as a couple' for a while. So that I can get my act back on track, and so that you can figure out what you want and if you're ready to take responsibility for the things you say and do. I guess that's all. I'd like to know what you think."

It was a while before Maria replied. "So, you want to go on a break?"

"Umm..." Michael had to swallow hard. "I want to **make** a break. Cutting loose from each other - for a while."

Maria's eyes glinted narrowly. "Making a break. So we can see other people?"

"Sure you can, if you want - I'm not going to stop you."

"And you?" Michael didn't reply, and she shook her head. "Typical. All of this is just a nice way of saying that I'm dumped so that you can go after Courtney. You think I don't **know** what your face looks like when you see her?"

Michael blinked in surprise. "Well, I don't know what my face looks like then. I don't tend to have a mirror handy at the time."

"It's like the way you used to look at me, but just a little different. The same because you're intrigued, you're attracted to her and wondering if she's really attracted to you. Different because you have this notion that maybe, just maybe... she's like you. That she's not like me and the rest of the poor pitiful earthlings, that she understands what it's like to be different from everyone around her. And that you really want to be able to share that feeling with someone... someone you could fall in love with, as opposed to Isabel or Tess."

Michael was stunned speechless for a long moment. He hadn't realized any of those feelings... but then, he was clueless about things like that, and Maria was just as sharp about them. He certainly couldn't deny what she'd said, not now. "Umm... I didn't intend to hurt you," he mumbled, aware of how lame it sounded.

"Yeah, well... that doesn't matter now, does it?" She mumbled. "It's done. You should go."

#

Liz rushed into the cafe's dining room at a sprinter's pace, looked around, and saw a familiar head of dark hair at the counter. "Alex! Hey, are you almost done your breakfast?"

He turned and smiled at her. "I just have half a waffle to go. What, are you in a hurry?"

"Kind of - you don't mind, do you?"

"I'll chew as fast as safety allows," he told her.

"Right..." Liz was ruffling through her backpack, trying to verify all of its contents. "Umm... ooh, geography book! I'll be back in a few minutes."

Once she had found the prodigal textbook and put it with the others, Alex was pushing his plate back across the counter and finishing his glass of juice. "Thanks for the lift," Liz mentioned as they walked out of the Crashdown.

"Hey, not a problem," Alex insisted. "So... may I ask if the reason you want to get to school early has anything to do with our Mister Evans?"

"Since when is he 'our' Mister Evans?" Liz laughed, getting into the car. "But yeah... I really need to talk with him as soon as possible, and there's a good chance he'll be in the school library, working on that trig assignment." Alex nodded as he pulled out.

"By the way, have you heard from Isabel at all?" Liz asked after half a minute.

"Nope." Alex shook his head. "Maybe I should just stop waiting for something to change. She's made it pretty clear where she stands."

Liz sighed. "I can't really tell you what to do, but if I were you... I wouldn't give up hope. Okay?"

Alex smiled at her vaguely without really saying anything. "Umm... any idea what you're going to do until classes start?" she said.

He grinned and spared one hand from the steering wheel to show her a paperback book from between the seats. "I'm going to hang in the courtyard and brush up on my 'wheel of time.' The new one's coming out in hardcover next week, and I'm second on the library's waiting list." Liz laughed softly.

#

Liz found Max at a study carrel at the back of the library, with two heavy math textbooks and a dozen sheets of scrap paper scattered around the area. The tired frustration on his face melted instantly into delight the second she cleared her throat... and then he visibly 'caught' himself and forced a demeanour of polite calm. Liz had to fight down a surge of nervous giggles, but a few escaped, and she was actually glad of them. They sounded kind of flirty, which was no bad thing just now.

"Hi, Max, glad I caught you," she said. "I'm really sorry to not get back to you until the last minute, but - Gomez? I'd love to go with you, if the offer's still open."

Max let a broad grin take over his face. "It's definitely still open for you. And thanks for coming."

"Hey, I'm looking forward to it." Liz couldn't even hear the name Gomez without thinking of that night on the balcony, just after the heat wave broke... when Max kissed her for the first time. 'We haven't turned around' was playing on the little boom box. It was their song - well, one of their songs, at least.

"It's a long drive up to Santa Fe, and there may be traffic," Max said. "I was thinking of getting on the road after sixth period... if that's okay."

Liz smiled. "I think I can afford to ditch two classes, yeah."

"Ohh - on the way home, we need to pick up Isabel," he added. "I promised I'd save her having to take the greyhound. Not to mention having to get someone to drive her to the bus station, in the next town over."

Liz nodded again. "Well, as much as I was looking forward to a romantic drive home with you after the concert - it'll be nice to see her again. Meet you in the parking lot?"

"Yes darling," Max said immediately. For some reason both of them broke up laughing at that point, and soon they had to go their separate ways and get ready for first period.

It was after lunch that Liz spotted Kyle hurrying down the hall away from her, and tried to catch him, just to mention that she didn't need a favour any more, (and find out if his dad was bugging him about a missing Beretta fifty-two.) But it wasn't easy to gain ground through the crowd of students all on their way from one place to the next, and Kyle seemed to be hurrying along at a good clip himself. It was all that Liz could do to follow him...

Until he slipped open the door of the administrative records room and closed it behind him. What was he doing in there? Only one thing came to mind, and it wasn't anything that actually had to do with the files inside. Slowly, Liz wandered over towards the door, trying not to attract any attention, and she peered through the distorting window, trying to make out any details.

Yeah, a couple was making out inside, though she couldn't even tell Kyle from looking through the window. It wasn't until she had taken nine or ten paces away from the door that something else sunk in. It was hard to be sure... but Liz thought she had recognized the sweep of pale blonde hair that had belonged to one of the participants.

No longer worried if people noticed anything odd about her behaviour, Liz spun around and hurried back to the room. Slowly and carefully, she turned the door handle, taking care not to make a sound, and opened it just enough to peer inside.

There could be no doubt. It was Kyle, and it was Tess. French kissing like there was no tomorrow. One of his hands was tangled up in that blonde hair, and the other was cupped firmly around her butt, squeezing through the relaxed fit jeans. Tess' own hands were, respectively, wrapped around the middle of Kyle's back for support, and undoing the buttons running down the front of his light blue shirt.

For a second, Liz couldn't look away. That was all the time it took for Kyle to start attending to Tess' smooth throat with kiss after kiss, and Liz pulled the door shut, (not as quietly as she might have,) and hurried away.

Only one thought made its way through her confused mind... maybe Tess had a new reason to stay in Roswell now, one that had nothing to do with Max!

#

Liz looked from the desert horizon back to Max, and sighed. They'd been two hours on the road, only a third of the trip to Santa Fe, and neither had said much to the other. Liz really did want to start over with Max, but she wasn't sure how to get back that rapport that they had a year ago.

"Yeah, I know, it's weird," Max said, making Liz laugh at how in this respect, he knew exactly what she was thinking. "We may need to take a little time together before things get comfortable again." He didn't seem to doubt that spending the time would be worth it, or that they'd both have the patience to follow through. "Want to grab some drive-through at Blackie's?"

Liz thought about that. "I could eat... I'm not terribly hungry, but I could go for a light snack. What's 'Blackie's' though? I mean, what kind of food do they have?"

"You've never been to Blackie's in Ramon?" Max asked. "Well, I guess you're not a big fan of cruising the desert highways, like me." He laughed slightly. "It's a drive-through only grill joint right at the side of the highway. Blackie as in burnt black, but the food isn't really - it's more like a running joke. They have an oversized grill set up to just pour thick clouds of smoke up into the sky, and a huge billboard facing north with a middle-aged father putting some crisply burnt food onto a picnic table, with the family all around him staring in disbelief. But their bar-b-q bacon burgers are amazing, and they have these cheese-grilled potatoes that you've simply got to try."

"Okay," Liz agreed. "How long does it take? We're not exactly doing great on time."

"I won't stop if there's more than four cars in the line-up already," Max said. "Any less and we should be fine."

There were only two cars ahead of them in the northbound line when Max pulled off to go into the drive, and despite Liz's assurances that she would only be able to eat 'a tiny snack,' he ordered a huge amount of food to go: "Double Decker deluxe banquet burger, hot lady with everything going for her, pig's tail, two large cheddar taters, and a small fries. Oh, and two cherry coke slakers."

"I'm really sorry sir; the cherry coke isn't available at the moment."

Max looked really disappointed. Liz had opened her mouth to suggest some other drink, (though she wasn't exactly sure what,) when there was a snort of laughter from the speaker. "Just yanking your chain, Max," the guy said. "First window."

Once they had picked up their edibles, paid, and barrelled back onto the open road, Max passed Liz a small package wrapped in wax paper. "That's yours."

"A hot lady with everything going for her?" Liz repeated the order as she started to unwrap it... and to giggle.

If Max picked up on the double meaning, he gave no sign. "I hope it's not too spicy for you... I thought it'd be good because it's smaller than most of their burgers, but not so tiny that you can scarf it up in two bites. Three ounces, if I remember right." He paused a second. "Try the cheese taters."

Liz did, finding them unfamiliar and yet an intriguing blend of savoury flavours... and took a long swallow from her 'quencher.' "I'm not completely sure I want to know... but what the heck is the pig's tail?"

Max laughed. "I'm not quite sure why they insist on calling it that - it's a thin pork sausage; drizzled with a delicate sweet and sour sauce, and cradled in a soft honey pastry... you have to try a bit of it." He snagged some spuds, and then cleared his throat softly. "Um, could you unwrap my burger for me? It takes two hands."

Liz smiled and fished the larger cylindrical package out of the drive-through bag. "So, when did you discover Blackie's? They seem to know you pretty well."

Max laughed. "Well, I'm not sure I can claim any credit for 'discovering' it. My folks used to stop there on family road trips, when I was just a wee little guy." He laughed.

Liz nodded, and thought about that a little more. "Why'd you take so many road trips up this way? Were you going to Santa Fe too?"

Max laughed. "Not really. There's a campground in Alamosa, across the state border into Colorado, where they'd take us to meet my mom's brother and his family. They lived... um, I'm not quite sure, but somewhere north, either north Colorado or whatever's past there." He sighed. "When I was twelve... you know what I mean - they moved to Vermont, and I don't think I've seen them since." Liz smiled with a little sympathy. "Once I got my driver's license and the Jeep, the spring before we really met, Michael was on this kick about searching the desert near the reported crash site for a secret hangar where the wreckage was kept. We started exploring well north of town, and Ramon was a convenient rest stop. So we ate a lot of barbecue."

"I've got to ask," Liz saod. "What would you have done if you'd **found** something out in the desert?"

Max shrugged. "I'm not sure. In retrospect, it's probably a blessing that the question didn't come up." He sighed. "And since then, when things get frustrating, it's nice to just drive around without going anywhere in particular."

Liz smiled, and they drove along in silence for a while. "Hey, mind if I grab some of the fries?"

"Help yourself!" Max insisted.

#

"So, any idea what you're going to have, Tess?" Jim Valenti asked her over their menus.

"Not sure," she mumbled. "I kind of feel like something... hot. How spicy is the sausage they put on the pie here, really?"

"Pretty damn hot," Kyle said. "Put them together with the jalapeno peppers and the red onions, and I don't think you'll be complaining... except that nobody will want to smell your breath for a week."

"Oh, I'm not so sure about that," Tess replied, a little smile on her face. "Think I might do without the onions though, not so wild about them. What else sounds good?"

"Well, I'm glad the two of you are getting along well lately," Mister Valenti said. Kyle and Tess immediately froze and shared a nervous glance. "Well, aren't you?" he continued, a little surprised by the reaction. "I've noticed a distinct lack of sniping back and forth over the breakfast table in the mornings."

"Maybe I just haven't had the energy to be bitchy lately," Tess said. "That could change soon." Jim shrugged, and went back to considering the menu for himself.

"What about you dad?" Kyle blurted out. "You haven't been around much lately... is something going on down at work?"

"Not really," Jim said, keeping his voice low. "Two calls came in from people in Whittaker's apartment building, complaining about suspicious noises. I went in and took a look around this morning, but nothing seemed out of place." He sighed. "It feels weird to be sitting on what I know about her disappearance, but the least suspicious course is to not give anything away until someone else brings up the fact that she's disappeared."

"I may try one of the calzones," Tess decided, startling Mister Valenti with the change of subject. "Are they good here?"


	5. Chapter 5

"No need to worry about the traffic." Max smiled. "We'll be there half an hour early."

Liz laughed. "So we have thirty minutes to kill... I can think of a few ways. It would have been tougher to sneak away halfway through sixth period."

"Yeah."

There was a pause, and then Max started to say "Well, we can-" just as Liz blurted out "I didn't..." and it was one of those awkward pauses where each of them waited too long for the other to start again.

"Um, you first," Max mumbled.

"No, I didn't mean to interrupt."

"I insist," Max said, and Liz smiled and tried to re-board her train of thought.

"I didn't come just because you asked." Liz rolled her eyes in self-directed frustration. "That doesn't make any sense. I mean... I know that I've been acting distant, lately, but it wasn't just because you suggested this concert that I wanted to... to do something with you, right now. It was a nice idea, and the offer helped me keep some stuff straight and settle overdue business, but I'd have been with you tonight even if you didn't have concert ticket... if you wanted to be with me, that is." She sighed. "That didn't come out the way I planned, but I'm glad I said it."

"I think I know what you mean," Max said, "and I'm glad to hear it." He paused. "I'm trying to decide how much I should read into it, actually."

"It should be a question of **how** to read it instead of just how much, I think," Liz said. "What I'm doing here... it isn't tentative. I want to start slowly, but never the sort of slow that could lead to standing still. We've got too far to go for that."

Max grinned. "Well, if it wouldn't be moving too fast, I would say we should seal this with a kiss. What do you say?"

Liz nodded, beaming. "**Definitely**. Umm - pull over." And so Max manoeuvred the jeep over to the shoulder of the road, parked, and turned to Liz. For a second it was awkward, as they took their seatbelts off and he slipped his arms around hers, but then their lips met, and it was a perfect moment... tender and sweet, innocent yet hinting at the depth of the love that they felt for each other. Right now, the hint was enough.

"Umm... was there something you were trying to say, when we both spoke at the same time?" Liz asked once the kiss was finished.

"Umm... just that we can hang around and talk until the show starts," Max stuttered. "Nothing very important, as I said."

Liz was tempted to joke about how 'they could find something better to pass the time than that,' but kept quiet instead, as Max buckled in and started the engine back up. Spending that much time making out didn't seem like the best way to 'start slow,' and they did need to talk more. A rift had been created between them since last spring, one that had not closed entirely. Most of their conversation on the drive over had not gotten past the 'small talk' level, and maybe now they could get to something a little more relevant. Figure out where each of the two of them had gotten to, while the other hadn't been looking.

Liz spotted a sign on the side of the road as they sped past. "Welcome to Santa Fe. Gusty winds may exist." For some reason, a rough drawing of the front half of a scampering cat had been graffitied in beneath.

#

Michael put down his bowl of cereal and got up to see who was knocking, not turning off the miniature TV screen. As soon as the door was half open, Alex barged straight through and past him. "Come on in," Michael muttered. "What's up?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

"Well, I was kinda watching the game, so if you've got something on your mind..." Alex, who had already paced to the far side of the living room and half the way back, reached out to grab the remote from the kitchen counter, clicked the television off, and spun round to face Michael.

"Do you have **any** idea what you've done to Maria?" Alex said.

Michael frowned. "Yes, as it happens, I do. What I'm not clear on, you being her friend notwithstanding, is where this is actually any of your business! It's a lousy situation, but it's between Maria and me..."

"Look, I don't care that you've got thirty pounds on me - or that you can kill me with some twisted alien power just by looking at me," Alex flared back. "I will **not** let you treat my friend like that. I don't care that Isabel treats me like crap, but **no one** does that to Maria, alright? As one of her best friends, I think I'm entitled to the 'you break her heart, I kick your ass' clause."

"It wasn't like I planned for things to go down this way..." Michael started. Unfortunately, just at that moment there was another tap at the door.

Alex and Michael both looked over to see a blonde girl wearing a dark blue top that was buttoned up only over her cleavage. "Knock knock," she called out in a flirty voice. Courtney.

Michael was so stunned by the immensely bad timing that he didn't see it coming. Alex must have wound up pretty hard, but all Michael remembered was the stinging impact, landing immediately around his left eye, and strong enough to send him flying back on his ass. "_Oww_!" He winced at the pain in his face, propped himself up on his hands, and looked up to see Courtney with an amused expression on her face, and Alex shaking out his right hand in an attempt to ward off the pain that the blow had cost him. It made Michael feel better on some level to see that throwing that punch had caused Alex some hurt too.

Michael prodded gently at his cheek with one finger, gritted his teeth at the discomfort that generated, and shook his head Alex. "You realize that you just risked your life?" he asked in a low whisper.

"Yeah," Alex grunted, now cradling his right hand gently in the other one.

"You're a really good friend, man," Michael said in admiration. He had intended it as an apology, but it was immediately obvious that he'd picked the wrong words.

"Call me that again," Alex growled, "and I will _really_ kick your ass!" He pointed with his sore hand at Michael for emphasis, and then hurried out, passing Courtney without a word and closing the door behind him.

Courtney crossed the living room and squatted next to where Michael was sitting on the floor. "Are you okay?" she asked, peering critically at the part of his face around the injured eye.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Michael grumbled, and she extended a helpful arm above his lap. Michael took hold of it and manoeuvred himself to a kneeling position... and then he completely forgot about getting up. He was looking directly at Courtney's face, just inches away from him... caught by the teasing look in her pale blue eyes, noticing how her straight pale hair framed smooth and rosy cheeks - trying to shake off the tempting fullness of her lips.

The things that Maria had said to him after he broke up with her were running through Michael's mind... was he really obsessed with Courtney because he thought she was another alien? Suddenly the urge to feel those lips again was irresistible. She leaned in at the same moment as he did, and their mouths met. As she kissed him back, Courtney stood up, slowly to let Michael follow her motion, and wrapped her arms around his neck. They spun around together, like two lonely planets caught in each other's orbit.

Michael stiffened and drew back a little, watching Courtney's face intently. There was a secret smile of triumph peeking out in those supple lips. Did he **really** want to be making out with the other woman so soon after splitting up with Maria?

Courtney made a small, nonverbal complaining sound, and Michael stroked the top of her wrist under her long-sleeved blue top, a soothing gesture meant to buy him time until he could decide just what he wanted. But he wasn't the surface he stroked to come off under his fingers.

Michael pulled his hand back, and the stuff came away with it... a pale, yellowish-white film, thinner than tissue paper and curling up around the edges. He had seen one of these before... it hadn't been as fresh and had disintegrated with his touch, but there was no mistaking the similarity.

"You're a skin?" he asked, not sure whether to be furious or excited.

Courtney reacted quickly... pushing him away, still with that teasing smile, and dashing down the length of the living room. Michael could hardly believe how quickly she could go from zero to breakneck speed, but he had enough presence of mind to stretch out one hand and try to pull her off course. Too late he saw the cloud of rose-purple light that trailed Courtney's departure, and felt his burst of energy skew to the side, punching a large crater in the plaster wall.

Michael could only stare in surprise as she launched herself at the window, shattering the glass and breaking the wooden struts as she crashed through. Michael dashed towards the window, but he could hear her footsteps fading away, and knew that there was no hope of catching her this time.

Maybe the skins were different in their physical capacities, Michael thought as he stood there. What Courtney had done would have made her a national-level sprinter, maybe Olympic class, and he suddenly doubted that was unusual for her kind. Were they stronger than humans - or hybrids - as well? What about their 'alien powers?' None of the four of them could create a defensive field like Courtney had just done... well, none of them had so far. They hadn't ever thought to try.

With nothing else to do right away, Michael picked up the remote and turned the television on again. Then he turned it off and grabbed the phone, dialling the number for the Valentis. Max was off at the concert, and Isabel would be coming back with him, late tonight. But Tess should hear the news as soon as possible.

#

Liz stood up in the passenger seat, holding on carefully to the door and the windshield, and let out a wild and carefree 'Whooo!' She looked around, down at Max, who smiled slightly and shook his head a little, and Liz felt compelled to add to her wild exclamation to make up for Max's composure. "**Yeah**, all right!" That seemed to do the job, and she resumed her seat, grinning like a maniac at the young man she thought of as her soul mate. "I'm a little worried about you, Max, acting so quiet and reserved at a show like that. You should be **exuberant** - I'm exuberant, aren't I?"

"That you are, and more," Max said. "Come to think of it, you're acting a little bit like you're drunk, Liz. You didn't... at the show -" He couldn't even bring himself to say it.

A line popped into Liz's head, and she would probably never get another chance to say it. "That's not alcohol, baby... That's **love**!"

It got a laugh out of Max, at least... a long and wholehearted laugh that made Liz smile just to hear it. "Well, he laughs - that's a good sign at least. Can I get a 'Whoo'?" No response other than a bit of a sidelong look from Max. "Can I **get** a '_Whooo_'?"

"Whooo," Max said, putting no emphasis into it.

"I can't hear you!" Liz shot back, really getting into the silliness now. "Okay, well, I could, because I was sitting right next to you, but still... that was pathetic. **Can I get** a '_Whhoooo_'?"

Max shook his head, laughing under his breath, and let out a wild whoop that seemed almost musical. Liz giggled and nodded approvingly. "Okay, didn't that feel good?"

"Not bad," Max admitted. "_Whooo-hooh_!" He chuckled. "Thanks. It takes a bit for me to unwind, as you might have noticed."

"Just kind of occasionally... or, like, always," Liz quipped. "So, how far is it to this place, anyway?"

"Umm..." Max peered at the odometer. "It should be only a few miles more... oh, right, there's the turnoff." Sure enough, there was a sign marking the place where they could turn off from the state highway to a smaller, rougher, and more dimly lit local road. "Umm... I realize that you might not want to talk about this right now, but there's the question of what we do, exactly... about Tess, given everything-"

"Um..." Liz paused to try to put her thoughts in order. "I don't think it's a good idea to rub her nose in the fact that we've gotten back together right away," she said slowly. "I realize that in a perfect world, we shouldn't have to worry so much about her feelings that we tiptoe around the subject, but New Mexico isn't in a perfect world. She's still invested in her idea of you being her destiny, and I don't think I want to upset her. She's a part of your family, and as callous as this sounds, you'll probably need her help in one of the next crises to hit."

Max thought for a moment. "That's... probably better than what I was about to say," he admitted. "I don't like having to hide my true feelings or watch what I say to avoid pissing her off, but you're probably right about the delicacy of the situation. Maybe we could try doing something subtle to feel her out about her reaction?"

"I'm not sure it's the best time for that just now, but we can watch for an opening."

"Why wouldn't this be the best time?" Max asked. "Is there something that you expect to change over the next few weeks? Or maybe... something that's already changing?"

"I probably shouldn't say anything about it yet," Liz whispered.

"In other words, 'yes,'" Max said. "Well, I can live with the secret for a bit. Okay, time for a new subject I guess, something completely low angst, umm..." He paused in thought for a long moment, and then asked her about a news story he'd seen about analyzing Beethoven's hair to figure out if the great composer had died of lead poisoning, which Liz hadn't heard about. She asked him questions until they arrived at Rencona. Liz handed Max a small slip of paper from the glove compartment, which he was able to use to find the doctor's office where he was supposed to pick Isabel up.

"She's probably waiting inside," Max said, undoing his belt and getting out of the Jeep. "I'll go get her."

"Wait a second," Liz said, leaving the vehicle herself. "I, umm..." He turned to see what the problem was, and Liz ran over to him, wrapping her arms around his chest and kissing him quickly, pressing her tongue between Max's lips.

"Wow," Max stammered once she was through with him.

"I just wanted to do that before..."

"Before we weren't alone together any longer?" Max finished, and she blush-smiled. "A truly excellent idea, I have to say. Umm - I'm going to have to get some sleep once we finally get back to Roswell, but... do you want to do something else this weekend? Late tomorrow afternoon maybe?"

Liz thought. "Yeah... in fact, this may not be what you had in mind, but do you want to go out to Hondo to see a fortune teller?"

Max's face showed his surprise. "No, actually, I'd planned to stick in town. What made you think of that?"

" I can't really explain the whole thing, but there's this place, Madam Vivian's, that Maria showed me, and - well, I was going to go anyway. If you'd like to come, I'll appreciate the company, but if not..."

"I will be there," he promised, kissing her one more time, more chastely, and then hurried off to the office door.

#

"Max, you can barely keep your eyes open," Isabel said. "Pull over and you can come back here and try to get some sleep. I'll take a turn driving, and Liz and I can get some girl talk in."

"I'm not ti..." Max didn't even get the word 'tired' out because of a really loud and clear yawn. "Okay, guess I can't say that I'm not kind of sleepy." He turned to Liz. "You don't mind?"

"Nah, are you kidding?" She giggled. "We've been on this date for twelve hours now! If you want to go and take a rest, by all means go ahead, I'm not offended or anything." Max smiled.

"Well, there's a Lottaburger two miles down the road," Max suggested. "We can pull in there, switch seats and you can grab some food or a coffee if you want." He yawned again. "Nothing for me I guess, if I'm going to try to get any sleep."

So Max and Isabel switched places and she continued back down the highway to Roswell. Max was curled up in one of the back seats, his eyes closed though it was hard for Liz to tell if he was asleep already or only trying (or maybe faking it,) and the girls had gotten coffees and an order of onion rings to share, and there was a small cheeseburger still wrapped up that Liz might tackle later on.

"So, what's been going on at home while I've been gone?" Isabel asked. "I called Max a few times, but he never seemed that talkative, and I felt too weird to call anyone else collect."

Liz laughed. "Well, it's been a weird week for me, for reasons that I don't want to get into at the moment." She sighed. "And Michael and Maria have been having problems too. He was trying to investigate that waitress girl Courtney, and Maria didn't like or trust some of his 'tactics.'" Liz shook her head sadly. "I hope they work it out."

Isabel shook her head. "The poor boy can't seem to manage any kind of a relationship without constant cue cards."

Liz stifled a snicker. "And... Alex has been out of sorts too. Missing you, I think."

She caught a hint of blush on Isabel's face as they went past a highway lamp. "Well... I've been thinking about him too, and about the way I left things. But the situation with Alex and me is complicated, and I think I'd thank you not to butt into our business."

"I wasn't trying to," Liz said. "That comment just kind of slipped out, and I wasn't going to take it any further." She hoped that Alex and Isabel would find their way back together too, though.

"So," she said, trying to change the subject. "Are you going to have a whole bunch of catch-up work when you get back to school, or did your teachers give you a heads up on the material to study while you were on candy striper duty?"

Isabel snorted. "Candy striper? Well anyway, I got a study guide for one or two of my classes, and I was kind of ahead on schoolwork anyway. It shouldn't take too long to sort things out." She sighed.

#

"This is it?" Max asked as Liz pulled into the parking lot next to the small building. Despite the neon signs in front, turned off in the daytime, it looked like nothing but a run-down three bedroom house.

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Why, were you expecting something... flashier?"

"Not really." Max paused a moment. "I guess I'm just having a bit of trouble seeing you as someone who'd actually _want_ to go and consult a psychic."

She shrugged. "Live with it." A sunny and playful grin followed those words. "You don't really mind coming, do you?"

"Nah, not since you drove," Max quipped. "I mean, I don't really understand it, but... just spending time with you is amazing, no matter how silly I think the activity is."

"Um, cool I guess." Liz got out too and slipped Max a quick kiss. "Okay... how about we pretend like we're strangers, and see if Madam Vivian can tell that we're really a couple if we come in separately?" That sounded like fun... it was also a way to make sure that Max wouldn't come in with her, because she wasn't sure she wanted him to hear.

"All right. You want to go in first?"

"Okay." There wasn't anyone in the waiting room, and the last customer came out before Max walked in. Madam Viv put the cards away and folded her arms as soon as she saw Liz.

"I have a policy of no repeat readings within three weeks for new customers."

Liz blinked in surprise. "Come on, this is important! I drove half an hour on four hours' sleep last night - you _have_ to give me another go! "

Vivian seemed dubious. "Why? I mean, it's not like I gave you a bad reading the other day. Why can't you just be satisfied with it?"

"Umm..." Liz shook her head, sitting down, even though Vivian hadn't asked her to and seemed not to appreciate it. "This may sound confusing, but I know what that last reading was about, and things have changed. I mean, it's possible to change someone's future, isn't it?"

Vivian thought about that. "Yes, but it's not easy or common. How can you be sure that your fate has changed... maybe you didn't even understand the ultimate course of destiny yourself."

"I guess I can't be sure, but call it a strong hunch," Liz said. "Come on, I'll pay you triple the usual fee, with no refunds. Just give it your best shot; I'd **really** like to know what your cards say."

"Okay, if you're sure. But, even if nothing fundamental has changed, the reading won't be the same as it was before - it never is. The cards will tell you about some different aspect of your situation or problem. Most people don't understand that, which is why I have the policy."

"I think I know what you mean," Liz said. "All right?" She peeled out the bills and set them down, then reached out to touch the deck of tarot cards when Vivian offered them. Liz couldn't seem to stop staring at the cards as Vivian shuffled them, and then started to deal out in a pattern that she remembered from before. "Okay, there's your significator, the Princess of swords, in the second pile, which means that this is an air reading, a thinking problem. Last time it came up water, for an emotional reading." She set the deck down for a moment and snatched Liz's money, stuffing it into a pocket of her long black dress.

"Okay, go on," Liz muttered. A transition from the domain of emotions to the realm of logical thought made sense... she had dealt with Future Max, not just by trusting her heart, but by trusting her head and figuring out the logic of the situation. But she had to wait for more to figure out if this divination stuff was actually relevant or a bunch of nonsense.

"Covering the princess, representing the root of the issue you wanted to consult the ethers about..." she dealt out the next card and placed it squarely on top of Liz's significator, having cleared the others away first. It looked to Liz like a compass surrounded by clouds and fantasy beasts. "The wheel of fortune, representing destiny." Liz gasped in shock. "The way that the threads of lives weave about you, a turning point altering the course of events. Given your sense of change, and the way you were concerned about the last reading suddenly not applying any more, I can't say I'm surprised that this is your primary factor, your present environment. The cards understand what you want to ask."

"Okay," Liz said, a little doubtfully. Despite the term that Vivian had used, this didn't seem to represent what she'd feared at first... maybe it was even relevant in the way she said. On the other hand, as a working psychic she had to be very good at gauging what her client wanted to hear and slanting her interpretations to reflect that, (if not to accommodate it necessarily.)

"Next... crossing the wheel is the nine of swords, representing guilt or anguish. You are worried... about something that you've done perhaps? Some way that you tried to change the course of the wheel, to impose your own vision on the future?" Liz carefully kept her face as neutral as possible.

"In your foundation... the king of cups. Now that's interesting! I recognize him from your last reading, where he was in your future, the leader who chose love with you - the man you were going to marry. Here he is instead your root cause, the deep unconscious influence that permeates everything you brood about. I imagine you have quite a complicated history with him."

"That card showing up there, instead of my future or somewhere else in the reading - is that bad?" Liz had to ask.

"It's hard to say until the spread is complete. That he lands here indicates that he is part of your soul, but he may or not be part of your future. Should I continue on?" Liz nodded, and the next card was dealt to the left of the initial formation. "In your past... is the hermit. Another major Arcanum, which will certainly have a strong influence. Normally, he represents introspection and guidance, but landing here, and inverted..." She looked up at Liz, startled. "There's an alternate interpretation of the origin of this card that it is Chronos bearing the hourglass of time. Maybe someone **did** change history. Someone or something that could... step outside history as we know it, who relates to time in a different way than we do."

Liz was starting to get spooked. "You... are you serious?"

"I think so - why? It's not how I'd normally interpret that card, just something that kind of popped into my head."

"Keep going," Liz insisted.

"Crowning you, representing your attitudes, your goal... well, no big surprise here, it's the nine of cups. Represents achieving a goal or obtaining your heart's desire, which is almost redundant in the topmost position of the cross. More specifically, it can represent getting results that you have hoped for... or making love." Liz blushed. "In your future position, the three of coins... teamwork, functioning well as a unit, getting a job done competently through co-operation."

"That's nice to know," Liz muttered. Now, as last time, Vivian moved to the side of the 'cross' of cards that had been laid out on the table.

"The card representing you at the base of the 'staff' is the tower, which fits with what you said, and the wheel of fortune indicated, about being in turmoil since you saw me last. You have gone through a sudden change and all of your plans have been disrupted, possibly made at least one very emotional outburst lately. Things have happened which you might have seen as a negative turn of your fortune, but this is more than overbalanced by the value of a blinding revelation... suddenly realizing a great truth and seeing an answer."

Another card, above the last. "The point of view of others, though, is the four of swords - rest and quiet preparation. Those around you have no idea of the dangerous forces you have been struggling with... if you'll take my advice - find someone who you can confide in. Keeping events as momentous as these inside and secret isn't healthy. But that's not specifically relevant to your question."

"The key factor in your staff is..." Vivian started with a spiel for the next card, but Liz interrupted her.

"That's the lovers again!" It was almost a squeal of delight, but Vivian's face fell.

"Actually, the card is inverted here, and so I don't think it means love in quite the same was as before. This time, I would tend to interpret it as... choice, which many people seem to think is a dirty word. Choice is usually thought of in terms of difficult dilemmas that have no good alternative, but..."

"All of living is making choices," Liz breathed.

"That's a very good way to put it."

"So... this card here... does it suggest that I'll be able to make my choices well? That they'll help with the co-operation and competence, and lead me to my satisfaction?" Liz reeled off, pointing to other cards in the layout in quick succession. "Help me to change the course of the wheel of life?"

"I would tend to say so, though it's not as clear as it could be," Vivian hedged. "And the final card, your overall outcome, is... there, the Star of Hope. That would help to confirm it as well. "If you think positively and have faith in your blessings, you can look forward to great success." She paused, contemplating the reading as a whole. "Yes, this confirms what you said about many things changing just over the past few days, but the outlook is positive. The anguish and guilt you feel is not justified, if it was intended to keep the hermit Time from interfering with your crown. Do you have any questions? I might be able to sub-define a card or two meaningfully, if it will help."

Liz thought about that. "What about the king?"

Vivian laughed. "Okay. Covering him is... the ten of cups. Radiant love, delight in good fortune... working for peace in his family. Crossing him as a complicating influence is... the judge in session. He is taking on difficult responsibilities, trying to do what's right."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," Liz muttered before she could stop herself. "Umm... could I get a little more info on these choices that I'm going to be making?" she asked, tapping the upside-down lovers card.

"I think it might be better not." Vivian started to gather up the cards. "On the other hand... do you want some of your money back? I feel a little bad keeping it all, since you were really right - you needed to know."

"Umm..." Liz thought about that. "Well, if you feel that way, you could give me half of it back. That works out well for me, and it comes out to a fifty percent tip on your usual fee, which I think you deserve."

"Okay." Vivian sorted through the bills and passed some of them back. "If there's someone in the waiting room, could you tell them to come on in?"

Liz waited for Max out in the Jeep until he left the building, which didn't seem to take too long. "Well?"

"A few cards into the reading she asked me if I knew the girl who had been in before, and when I admitted that, she said I was your 'prince charming,'" Max said, smiling.

"Okay. What about the rest of the reading?"

"Oh, the usual canned tripe. Great challenges, passionate love, the importance of friends, knowledge is power... I have to tell you, Liz, I really don't believe in this stuff. Nobody can shuffle a deck of cards and tell you what your life is going to be like." He leaned in over the door frame and kissed her on the arm. "I keep telling you, Liz - we make our own destinies."

She smiled. "I guess you're right. So, should I drive on the way back too?"

"Why don't you start," Max said, going over to the passenger door, "and maybe I'll take over at Highway Mill, across the country line?"

She kissed him one more time, and started the motor.


End file.
